


The Shadows on his Shoulders

by lizlee83



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angsty Schmoop, Canon Compliant, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, Civil War in Heaven (Supernatural), Crack, Destiel - Freeform, Fluff, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt/Comfort, Introspective Dean Winchester, M/M, Past Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester, SPN - Freeform, Soulless Sam Winchester, Wings, cas under a spell, season 6, very slight wing kink, vessel problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-10 08:29:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17422412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizlee83/pseuds/lizlee83
Summary: Dean is having a very long day; a very long month, a very long year. His last hunt was a shit-show, Sam's been acting strangely, and Cas is nowhere to be seen. He just wants a bit of respite in his crappy motel room, but when something goes bump in the night, he's forced to reckon with more than the intruder.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so... this is my very humble first contribution to a fandom already overwhelmingly saturated with talent. I've read Destiel fics that blew my mind, which I think should belong on shelves and win awards. As such, I find it intimidating to present this to the world (about 10 years too late) but here it is nonetheless; a small standalone of Dean and his Feels(TM) in the middle of a night on the road. 
> 
> I tried to stay true to the characters as best I could. I write long and cheesy folks, and with a lot of detail, so that's why I tried to keep the chapters shortish. I also don't have a Beta, so please excuse any mistakes/typos and feel free to mention them to me :) 
> 
> Final thing: I rated it Mature mostly just because I use a lot of foul language.
> 
> Despite my qualms with my own writing, I worked hard on this fic and I hope someone enjoys it. :) *squeak*

His giant hands still slick with vamp guts, Sam had insisted on doing his own thing straight after the last job, “to unwind”, he’d said. Usually, Dean would have been alright with that, because Sam’s thing typically involved dusty local libraries, bricky computers from the 90’s, and general nerdery that the elder Winchester only partook in during times of _absolute_ necessity. That Sam enthusiastically volunteered for that kind of research was one of the more welcome perks of being brothers with a total geek. Lately though, Sam’s idea of unwinding had forgone books and defunct websites entirely, and mostly involved dive bars and cheap hookups. Dean _might_ have felt a twinge of misty-eyed pride about how Sam had been stealing his thunder in that regard lately, were the change not so drastic. In fact, despite how deliriously happy Dean had been to see him again on that fateful day in Lisa’s neighbour’s garage, this was only one of the many things that he’d come to realized had changed in Sam’s usually predictable personality. Sam had been different since his return from Hell, period. Of course, spending the equivalent of years in the fiery pits of bloody absolution could obviously change a guy, but it was more than that, somehow. Dean couldn’t quite put his finger on the root cause (and he was not getting _any_ help on that front, celestial or otherwise), but he did know that Sam had fully 180’d from Disney to HBO.

The flip had been worrisome enough to tear Dean from the brief sanctuary of Lisa and Ben’s and hit the road again, though that had been a long time coming. Months of retrospect later, Dean had been forced to make amends with the fact that the last year spent as Mr White Picket-Fence had served its purpose, but that he wasn’t suited to being domesticated. (Big fat duh on that one, but sometimes, a guy had to try.) It had been a comforting salve in the wake of Sam’s fall into the Pit, and he did admittedly love Lisa and Ben. Ultimately though, there was no escaping the things that went bump in the night; not for a Winchester. Still, it had been nice for a while, to pretend he was someone whose everyday involved rides to school, dishes, and the Maddisons' annoying cat who always shat in the rose bush, as opposed to the _literal_ apocalypse.

Now, as he threw a mangy duffel onto an even mangier motel bed, that brief sliver of peace felt alien; a distant exit long past in the rearview mirror. Now, he was back in his element, such as it was: Exhausted, every nook of his body caked with dirt and a nest’s worth of vampire blood, and of course, absolutely crushed with the isolating burdens of his ensnarement between the violent wills of heaven, hell and every dark, slithering realm in between. _Home_. Dean was used to being burdened; that was a Winchester’s bread and butter. His entire life as a hunter had been a smothering, burning blanket of impossible responsibilities imposed on him from far too young an age. While not always thrilled about it, he’d met fate with the dogged tenacity (or pigheadedness) dictated by his DNA, alongside Sam and Cas. And they’d won as much as they’d lost, and by _god_ the latter was enough to fill a couple of phone books, but they kept going. That was the important part: _Not_ letting some douchebag egomaniacs from above, below and between dictate life on Earth, even as slimy a place as humans could make it sometimes. Not because they were heroes or Saints, but just because they were _pissed off_. Since this was his cursed lot in the grand scheme of things, he’d generally decided to keep pushing back in any way he could, kicking and screaming and gritting his teeth, and punching the gods with their plans right in their ugly, mysterious faces. That was Dean’s way. Vulgar some might say, but effective. And bonus: the people milling around on that world which hung on his shoulders still had free will. On most nights, that kept Dean warm enough.

Still, tonight was different.

Perhaps it was the drain of this most recent job; this nest of vamps in particular could all have had prom dates for how disturbingly young they looked. Perhaps was it the cold, psychopathic detachment with which Sam had killed these literal children of the night that evening, as easily as chopping rose stems (not that Sam had spontaneously evolved a predilection for flower arranging, but-). Or maybe it was just that nagging and unkillable longing for normalcy which breached him every so often, especially after particularly gruesome jobs, which in turn, fed the upsetting realization that he had no idea what _normal_ even was anymore. Normal for Dean fell anywhere on the spectrum between ordering a burger at a quaint diner and stabbing some teenager through the head. Sometimes, that could wear on a guy.

As a result, in the cloying dimness of his grimy motel room in the middle of nowhere, Dean was forced to reckon with a rare bout of vulnerability. Tonight, he was sick of fate, fighting and faking a determination he didn’t feel. He was bitter and spent, empty and desperate for a meaning to all of it that he knew he wouldn’t find.

Of course, the only place he’d looked so far was at the bottom of a cheap whiskey bottle.

 

He had Sammy back, but he _wasn’t_ Sammy. Not exactly.

_Swig._

 

He had his grandfather back, but Samuel was far from the illustrious hunting legend Dean had always imagined; He was actually kind of a slippery, cue-balled douchebag.

 _Swig_.

 

He’d gained some semblance of stability back for the first time since he was like, 4, but had traded it for the next big bad as soon as he could get behind the wheel.

 _Swig_.

 

And through all of this, Cas was nowhere.

There was not enough whiskey in the world for Dean to even go there. The angel had long since b-lined to the top of his mental shit-list, but this lackluster town he was in didn’t have nearly enough whiskey to pick at that scab. Suffice it to say that the Cas’ sustained absence due to Heaven’s civil war had been more than noticed. It had festered into a hot, ragged wound in that nameless place under Dean’s skin, where the angel had long since taken up residence without asking. Like some sort of fungus, but with better hair.

Dean finally rose from the hard mattress to go to the bathroom, desperate to distract himself from his self-sorry meanderings. His worn frame roared in protest, barely numbed anymore by the warming hum of alcohol. Still, he was filthy and needed to cleanse himself of that day’s particular horrors anyway. The way his bones deeply ached with every step, he momentarily found himself longing for the instantaneously effective ministrations of his angelic counterpart, but quickly rebuffed the thought. How easily he’d become instinctively dependent on Cas wasn’t something he cared to dissect just then either. Besides, Cas barely deigned show up anymore unless it was to ask a vague but-always-ridiculously-dangerous favour in the name of his Holy Featherduster Crusades. Maybe that was a good thing. The distance would give Dean time to recover; to find solace in his old, pre-Cas routines. Perhaps he’d gotten careless or lazy; no other hunter had the luxury of a literal angel on their shoulder after all. Still, Dean’s body had suffered a lot lately as a consequence of fighting his way through Cas’ “errands” (aside from the usual slew of Awful that tailed him on the regular), and the celestial ass hadn’t even bothered restoring the merchandise. It left the elder Winchester feeling much like a revolving door of ancient weapons and thankless celestial chores. That night, the booze and resentment even led Dean to question the depth of their admittedly ambiguous relationship; to wonder if their so-called _“profound bond_ ” was nothing more than an empty title unworthy even of the cheesy Hallmark card it insinuated.

He’d expected more of the angel, and better of himself.

Attachments were dangerous in his line of work; they could get you or those you dared to care about killed. They could make you weak. Or worse for unadmitted softies like Dean, they could leave you disappointed. Somehow, the assumption of Cas’ presence had slithered its way past his defenses over the years, and sprouted stubborn roots inside him which kept him stitched together more often than he cared to admit. They’d curled into his breath and woven themselves through the pits of his stomach, through the skin of his twitching fingers, twisting whenever the angel moved, wrenching ceaselessly in his gut whenever the angel was gone.

Like the goddamned weed he was, (weed, fungus, whatever… it was a stubborn affliction in any case) Cas had become a constant. Family, though the term felt somewhat lacking, if he was honest. And maybe Dean resented him for becoming just another thing he didn’t deserve, which the universe would inevitably see fit to rip away from him or use against him.

Embodying the defiance of a scorned child, Dean bitterly resisted the urge to swipe his fingers over the handprint seared into his shoulder. It was time to stop blubbering, and just accept that despite all they’d been through together, perhaps he was just a utilitarian convenience to Cas. Because Angel Things superseded Dean and his pouting every time.

Resigned, he flicked on the bathroom light.

The mirror was cracked and grey, but it nevertheless served up his haggard reflection in merciless clarity.

His fatigue was an ever-present truth barely worth noticing anymore, but it sometimes crept up and startled Dean when he looked hard enough. His viridescent eyes seemed foggy and red that night (and not just because of the booze). They were haloed by far more lines etched into his tan skin than he’d anticipated; markings earned through blood that recorded long decades of encounters with dark things. Speaking of, he began with wiping his face clear of the Pollock-like spatterings of red marring his face. Seeing his features re-emerge from beneath the gruesome war mask made him feel fractionally better, even though the myriad of cuts still disrupted the boyish freckles. Sighing, he painstakingly peeled up his formerly white t-shirt and winced a little at the sight. He was covered in all manner of scratches and bruises thanks to those fanged emo tweens.

After a cursory shower, he pulled on some grey joggers and a clean(ish) tank which he left half-hiked up to expose a rather nasty gash along his left obliques, and half-heartedly pulled out the first aid kit. He took another swallow of the cheap whiskey before proceeding with what would likely be a long session of stitching and bandaging. He didn’t quite know where to start, tentatively poking at the largest wound in deflated irritation. Go big or go home. He sterilized the needle and went to town. He was harpooning himself with the third stitch when a bizarrely familiar sound interrupted the hiss sliding through his teeth. The soft and unmistakable ruffling sound, which Dean had _very_ secretly likened to a flock of pigeons, ‘foomfed’ from the other room, followed by a dull thud. Dean’s entire body flinched from the inside out.

His treacherous heart hurled itself against his rib cage in a fit of Pavlovian glory, and Dean practically tore out a stitch in his haste to leave the bathroom.

He didn’t have to, but he launched the shaking question out into the darkness anyway, misgivings forgotten.

 

“... _Cas?”_


	2. Visitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean's self-loathing is interrupted.

Dean could just barely make out the heap of boring beige trenchcoat splayed against the offensively coloured carpet. It was scattered beneath what at first, appeared to be a huge black miasma. Dean drew in a tight breath.

“Cas?” he asked again, wariness mounting in his chest. His pulse skyrocketed and he instinctively reached for the knife he’d stupidly left on a nearby nightstand, not that it would make any damned difference. A faint groan escaped the heaving mass on the floor. Instead of the weapon, Dean risked a grope at the dusty lamp sitting crookedly on the nightstand. The dim orange bulb sputtered and buzzed its hardest, finally providing enough visual context for Dean to understand what he thought he was seeing. It didn’t help much. Squinting in a way that would give the angel himself a run for his rupees, Dean finally made out Castiel’s perma-tousled dark hair beneath the heap of what he could only surmise were feathers.  _Feathers_. And damn his faulty voice box, Dean couldn’t restrain the girly gasp that escaped him at the sight.

 

 _Wings_.

 

Castiel lay crumpled beneath massive, shimmering black _wings_ which had torn their way through his trademark attire. Dozens of questions whirred through the hunter’s brain all at once, most notably involving why there was extensive damage to Cas’ Earthly vessel if the war was going on in _Heaven_ … why Dean could even see the enormous appendages at all when they were usually relegated to the realm of Big ~~Sexy~~ Scary Shadows… and why, finally, Cas was suddenly _there_ after months of sustained absence. None of it added up to anything good, including the unprompted speculation about what the wings must have looked like attached to Cas’ naked shoulder blades. Fortunately, Dean’s well-honed preservation instincts kicked into overdrive and banished any further queries. He dove to the pile of angelic road-kill without even a sniff of  hesitation.

“Cas, hey! _Cas_ !” he called out, unable to move him much due to the huge wings. Apparently incorporeal limbs could be _heavy as fuck_. They seemed to flap slowly of their own volition, perhaps to instinctively shield the angel from the intrusion of hands and gruff coaxing. Dean hesitantly laid a hand on one, honestly surprised at its luxuriant softness, but wasted no time. Meeting only a little resistance insofar as how the huge fuckers were supposed to bend, he gathered and folded the inky appendages against Cas’ back as carefully as he could, until he was finally able to (painstakingly) turn the angel onto his back. It was surreal, even for a man accustomed to dealing with all things impossible on a daily basis.

 _“Huh, I guess he really IS an angel,”_ he thought ridiculously, as his brain still steamed along to process the astonishing sight.

_Duh._

As though the plethora of miracles Cas performed on the daily hadn’t been enough, and it had taken Cas literally sprouting wings in front of his dumb face to finally get Dean convinced. Symbols were a powerful thing. Dean wondered fleetingly if halos were also literal, scanning Cas' head fleetingly.

Whatever the case was, Dean was having trouble not getting too Oprah about the whole thing truth be told, because these things were _awesome_ , and damn if Cas didn’t look _totally_ freaking badass. Okay, maybe the impression would have benefitted from the angel _not_ writhing around like a beige worm skewered on feathery hook… but still. Pretty awesome. Fortunately, the wings seemed to obey once Dean had soothed them into place, but they lended a rather awkward, spine-crunching bend to Cas’ posture as he lay helplessly atop them. Dean tried to accommodate this by grabbing a nearby cushion, dusty as it was, and placing it under Cas’ lolling head.

Dean felt his stomach lurch as he took in Cas’ state more closely from this new vantage. His “holy accountant” get-up was mostly shredded thanks to the wings’s seemingly unexpected appearance, but also due to what seemed like the remnants of battle. Long slashes ran across his chest, where an ethereal blue light leaked from the disruptions. Grace. Bizarrely, an alarming amount of what seemed like human blood was _also_ oozing from the angel’s mouth and various other wounds across his body. Its slow course provoked a rather ghastly contrast against the pristine white shirt he customarily wore, though the vestment hung on by mere clotted strands at this point. Most of the marks were so deadly precise that Dean could only conclude that these were the result of angel blades. Despite his considerable experience in most violent matters, the hunter couldn’t suppress the ball of apprehension constricting the back of his throat at the gory spectacle.

 

The bastards had flayed his angel to pieces.


	3. Broken toilet

“Cas, come on man…” Dean urged. “You’re gone for months and this is how you decide to make your entrance? Stop being a drama queen and wake up.”

He tapped his face, called his name… but there was no response, for long enough that Dean was considering calling his erratic yeti of a brother for back-up. He swallowed the thought down, owing to the fact that Sam lately had been even more of a mess than Cas, just of a different sort. And Dean well, he wasn’t too good at emotional multitasking. He opted instead to grab Cas’ unmoving shoulders and shaking them, probably more violently than was advisable for any human. Despite all his grievances with anything remotely celestial lately, his heart pounded with dread. Dean was always a little irrational when it came to Cas, even though the guy was technically supposed to be ungankable. It was just… with all the evil things in the world (and their uncle) eagerly doing their damnedest to test that theory lately, Dean shook harder.

The lazy jerk finally stirred. He gurgled and choked awake, his impossible blue eyes striking Dean’s face like annoyed lasers. His face seemed to show more irritation than any real suffering, though that was saying something for the usually stone-faced angel. He had to be hurt pretty bad.

“Hello, Dean,” he said anticlimactically, once he realized where he was. That low, sandpaper voice stripped away Dean’s anxiety in an instant. He actually chuckled a little while his eyes stung (the room was dusty!) but the feeling of relief was fleeting, making way for something much more typical.

“Cas, what the _hell_!” he bellowed.

“You’re injured,” the placid angel remarked, cutting off Dean’s tirade. He sighed.

“Vamps, nothing seri-” Dean attempted, but Cas had lifted a hand to meet the hunter’s concern-knitted features. Dean froze, his pulse thundering in his ears and his cheeks burning, for some reason. Two fingers gently poked his forehead, but before Dean could bat them away in realization, the blissful relief cascaded through his body. Cas then proceeded to cough like emphysema was going out of style.

Dean could barely restrain his outrage at the gesture, but Cas’ eyes were flickering back and forth from avenging to half-conscious mortal and he thought better of it.

“You’re leaking mojo like a broken toilet here; save it for yourself, you idiot!” he berated him tepidly.

“I only helped a little. You'll still require stitches and.... a _toilet_? You couldn’t have chosen a better allegory?” Cas grunted. It seemed his attackers had spared his precious sass.

“I’ll _allegorically_ and _literally_ kick your ass if you do that again. Don’t mo-”

Obviously, the angel ignored him. Insufferably stubborn as always, Cas wordlessly hoisted himself from the ground, using the great wings as makeshift jacks. Even with their help however, he struggled to get to his feet, but Dean was upon him in seconds. He slung an arm around his waist for support, though the exercise proved to be much more tricky than usual: he actually ate a face-full of feathers before finally succeeding at dropping Cas on one of the sad little beds. He took a seat beside him. For a long while, Cas sat there with his head drooped forward onto his soiled shirt, as though trying to collect himself, the occasional hacking cough escaping him. Perhaps his vessel was even more damaged than it had first appeared, seeing as it showed both angelic and mortal wounds. Dean was more than a little curious about this (and the impromptu midnight drop-in), and his patience vis-à-vis the angel’s staunch silence broke mere seconds later.

“You gonna explain this anytime soon, Cas? You’re bleeding blood _and_ mojo... Last time I checked that’s not a good sign… and why the hell have you gone full turkey?” His crude reference to the wings had bypassed the angel entirely, who instead treated him to an exhausted glare.

Dean reached out and unabashedly thumbed at one of the long black primary feathers in explanation. It twitched in protest, immediately whipping away at the touch. In Dean’s defense, the things were _everywhere_ , all up in his space, to the point where he and Cas were cocooned in a sort of feathery confessional. It was almost impossible _not_ to touch them. Hell, he kind of _wanted to_ just for shits and giggles, even though the situation had forced him into closer quarters than his nebulous heterosexuality might have preferred.

He doubted Cas even noticed, but the proximity was becoming somewhat distracting to Dean’s increasingly flustered (and frankly half-cut) senses. He’d have chosen swan-diving back into hell in a tutu over admitting it, but Dean was a massive sucker for physical closeness, after all. Thankfully, seeing as intimacy was a fleeting luxury in his line of work (and genes), he managed to get his fix under the lazy pretense of one-nighters. As such, for the most part, his “wuv” of hugs was a heavily-guarded family secret, but whenever the opportunity oozed its way past Dean’s self-imposed barriers, especially in the guise of bed-headed angels with no sense of personal space, it had a funny way of throwing a monkey-wrench smack into the balls of all his manly ideals.

...Freakin’ angels and their lack of personal space.

Because as fate would have it  _of course,_ Castiel had deemed the concept verticality obsolete. He was now fully leaning on Dean if the faint scratch of a five o’clock (okay, 12:53 AM) shadow now resting against his shoulder was any hint. A faint blue glow was cast against the shimmering feathered cloak, and while the effect was admittedly cozy, Dean forcefully reminded himself that it was only happening because Cas was leaking angelic Force juice profusely. Like a toilet.

...Romantic.

Dean could feel Cas’ warm, trembling breath skirt across his denim-clad lap, smell the iron-tainted air encapsulating them…. And in fact, now that his brain finally bothered to override his less decorous bodily responses, he realized that Cas having any smell at all, or breath beyond his cursory imitations for that matter, was totally, _completely_ wrong. Several alarm bells went off in his subconscious, but he let Castiel collect himself.

“Cas?” he prompted again, after several tense moments. His dark head wobbled uselessly at Dean’s nudge.

“It’s a spell,” Cas offered, vague as ever. “I’ll be fine.”

Forcing him to relinquish his cozy resting place, a cough rattled through Cas until more blood ran from his lips. In a quickfire gesture that almost seemed self-conscious, he unceremoniously wiped it off on his torn tan sleeve. Unthinkingly, Dean reached through the curtain of feathers for the tissues suspiciously-placed at his bedside and wiped away the residue dribbling from the corner of the angel’s mouth. Now, he’d done so out of concern - he was certain of it - but upon noticing how the plump flesh of Cas’ lips pliantly stretched beneath his fingers, he - _well_ , he thought of setting his hand on fire for how unscrupulously it had betrayed him. He’d need that hand later however, for Reasons (perhaps involving suspiciously-placed tissues), so he resigned himself to the blush spreading over his features. For his part, Cas hadn’t protested.

“You gotta give me a little more than that, Cas” Dean barked irritatedly. He trapped his hand behind his neck and put it to work smoothing out the tension there, lest it try any other dirty tricks.  

The narrow-eyed head tilt that followed made him falter, but he was determined to hold that infuriating cerulean gaze until it would yield. It never did, but he could try, dammit.


	4. Bitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas explains why he's there.

“It was a surprise attack,” Cas eventually explained.

“Raphael’s troops meant to disable me by making me mortal. I have to admit, I didn’t expect such underhanded tactics from my brothers and sisters. I’m still not entirely sure how they managed it.”

Uncharacteristic as it was, there was definite hurt in Cas’ voice, or disappointment in the least. Dean said nothing even though his heart sank, letting the angel continue. He knew a thing or two about being disappointed in the actions of beloved siblings.

“They probably recruited a very powerful warlock, or worse, to concoct such a spell. One of my lieutenants took the brunt of the strike, but I was still partially hit. It was enough to cause me considerable damage… my angelic attributes have been…. _Glitchy_ , for lack of a better word.” The great black wings quivered a little to highlight the remark, while Dean couldn’t help the slight swell of pride at the use of the term. That definitely wasn’t something they taught in angel school.

“What happened to the lieutenant?”

He already knew the answer of course. Heaven’s so-called mercy was just a fairytale meant to keep legions of blissfully-ignorant, god-fearing butts in the pews.

Cas sighed, passing his hands through his dishevelled hair. This expression of grief, or at least consternation, was proof enough that Cas was off-kilter. He usually let the deaths of angels and humans roll off his tongue without so much as a blink, regardless of how he inwardly felt about them. The brief, vulnerable gesture left Dean starving with the need to comfort him, but he locked his arms even more tightly around himself, his nails digging into the buzzing skin of his biceps.

“Cyriel is dead. His grace seeped out of him on contact and then once he was mortal he was impaled on-”

“Okay okay, I don’t need the play-by-play, I get it,” he interrupted. “I’m uh, sorry Cas.”

“Thank you.” He replied. His gaze clouded with guilt. “Cyriel was loyal. He shouldn’t have died. Too many of my brothers and sisters have already, in the name of this War.”

Indeed, though he’d seen it a few times before, the idea of angels dying was unpalatable even to Dean.

Cas’ partial mortality was downright unfathomable in fact, not to mention probably incredibly disturbing to the angel. Downgrading to slug status was probably close to the human equivalent, Dean wagered. He wondered how Cas could stand it, how he was so calm, or conscious for that matter… especially since long, wispy coils of disrupted grace were worryingly wafting from his injuries, still. Dean felt another pang of sympathy well up in his chest for the angel, but swallowed it down. Angelbro or not, Cas hadn’t exactly been Mother Theresa lately.

“I guess that means that even you can smell yourself right now then huh?” Dean joked lamely, trying to dilute the grimness of the situation.

“This isn’t funny. I am needed up there,” Cas snapped bitingly, his eyes closing. “I should be _there_.” Dean’s expression hardened. So much for sympathy.

“Hey, ain’t nobody forcing you to stay down here with us mud monkeys Cas, you’ve made it perfectly clear that you don’t wanna be here unless it’s for me and Sam to do your celestial groceries.”

“That’s not.. That’s not fair,” Cas countered, looking strangely helpless, “I have always come when I could, and this war, it’s-”

“I told you before, I don’t give a crap about your war, it’s none of our business,” Dean flared coldly, fully aware of his astronomical douchery levels. “The only reason we ever help you is because it’s _you_ , Cas, not because we give a shit about some heavenly cat-fight. And not for nothing either… look what happened to you!”

To emphasize the matter, he dared to reach over and grab Cas’ stubbly chin to lift it some, revealing seemingly endless Grace-spewing slashes down the column of the angel’s neck. It almost looked like he had gills. Cas said nothing, but those blue eyes bored into Dean mercilessly. Dean swore the angel had leaned into his touch, but he released him before he could confirm the impression.  

There was no way Cas could ever understand the desperate kind of ache Dean felt at seeing him like that anyway. He barely understood it himself, or rather refused to acknowledge that this roiling, heated anxiety unfurling in his chest scared him far more than anything he hunted. Much like when dealing with Sam’s after-school girl talks, Dean felt an urgent need to escape the burgeoning Moment, but those wings he admired so much were now imprisoning him in a cocoon of self-loathing awkwardness.

“Look,” he reasoned, “why don’t you just tell me why you’re here so we can get you on your way? What is it, another weapon goose chase?”

In guise of response, Cas stared at him in that pissed-off-owl sort of way he did sometimes. Dean suppressed the treacherous warmth he felt at the sight. So it always went.

“No. I need to recuperate,” the angel explained tersely, “I disagreed, but my battalion insisted I hide for a while since I now seem to be the enemy’s primary target. There was nowhere else to go. ”

Piqued, Dean finally rose from the small bed and decided he’d prefer skewering stitches into his hide than to continue this conversation with the angel who thought of him as a regrettable Plan B.

“‘Kay, awesome,” Dean barked. “Always happy to be your shitty backup plan, Cas.”


	5. Tug-of-War

It was petty - like highschool gossip petty - but he was about a bottle short of admitting that, or how his insides squirmed with dismay to think that maybe he really was nothing more than a tool in the angel’s arsenal. In true Winchester fashion, childishly storming off from a rising tempest of gnarled emotions seemed appropriate. Cas could sit there and stew in his temporary, stinky mortality if he wanted, but it’s not like Dean had to stay there and be reminded of all the ways in which he, a mere shit-kicking primate, was his inadequate last option for company.

Screw that.

“Dean,” the gruff voice contested, but the hunter pressed forward towards the bathroom.

Or at least, that was the plan before a curtain of darkness restrained his retreat. Long midnight feathers encased him, and forced him back towards the angel. He swore he could almost _feel_ him glowering into his ass. Dean’s liquor-drenched heart hammered in his chest, the damn fool thing, despite his best efforts at keeping his composure.  

“Stop” Cas commanded him, his gravelly voice low and threadbare. Even in his reduced state, there was was the faintest trace of smity-ness in the tone, and damn if Dean didn’t feel a hot twinge in his belly about it. Unfair.

“Lemme out Cas,” Dean sniped. No dice.

He struggled in vain against the man… er, _angel-_ handling, but this only resulted in emphasizing his current position as the powerless little peon that he was. Beneath his outward protestations at the vexing situation, something obnoxiously pleasant squirmed its way through him. It often happened when Cas overpowered him (or anyone, really), and he tried not to think too hard on what _that_ meant. He was angry after all, but not dead from the waist down. Right? Right. Totally normal reaction to one’s best friend. Since he had no choice but to stagger backwards at the wings’ behest, he fanned his fingers over his unrelenting feathery prison.

“What the hell are these things made out of anyway, Adamantium?”

“Grace,” the angel said matter-of-factly, from right behind him. “Though right now, I’m not entirely certain.”

Dean grimaced sourly, and before he could reason the reflex away, he insolently pinched one of the feathers. Was it immature? Yes. Was it a petulant little gesture compelled by his juvenile, bullheaded need to always have the last word? _Of course_ . And did Cas unexpectedly utter a sound in response that Dean would remember to his dying day? Shockingly, also _most definitely yes._ The involuntary whimper sent molten lava plummeting south, and all at once Dean had entirely forgotten why he’d felt so slighted. Or how to speak.

“Stop that,” Cas growled, recovering lightning-fast.

Dean obeyed, swallowing hard. He fastidiously buried that precious little discovery somewhere deep and forbidden while the spark of fire in his belly roared.

“You’re acting like a child.”

“Well _I_ ain’t the one playing the Big Bird version of tug-of-war right now,” Dean huffed hoarsely, defiant to the last.

He’d wanted to object further, but he’d grown too distracted by how far backwards the wings had towed him. He was suddenly aware of Cas breathing against the small of his back; steady, hot wisps of air scorching the skin there doing sweet fuckall squared to allay the mounting tension in his body.

 _‘Old nuns, Sam’s farts, Bobby’s breath’_ he dutifully chanted in his head, frozen in place.

He’d faced thousands of otherworldly creations - gods and monsters alike - without batting a pretty, Winchester eyelash. He wasn’t about to let one dour, tattered angel breathing down his back petrify him to the spot in a haze of unbidden desire. Except...oh. Maybe he was. It was definitely not his finest moment, in an apparent string of moments with Cas each less fine than the next. Of course, he could nevertheless not be arsed to deem any of these encounters even remotely unpleasant.

“C-Cas…. what are you…” Dean finally sputtered, his voice tighter than he’d have liked.

“Let me clarify, since you seem to be _willfully_ misunderstanding me,” Cas declared rigidly from behind him, “I came to you because in Heaven or on Earth, you are the _only_ one I can trust. Not because you were some backup plan, Dean. I assumed you understood that by now, though I am sorry if this is inconvenient for you."

The words gut-punched him so hard, he almost felt his ribs ache. Happily, emotions for Dean Winchester killed boners faster than burrito night with his brother. On the flipside, this left him with actually having to deal with said feelings on the matter, since he was _literally_ trapped. Well, shit.

Not that he hadn’t sort of enjoyed Cas essentially monologuing to his posterior, but now that Dean felt direly sentimental about the angel’s admission, he grudgingly turned around to face him. He’d expected Cas’ impossibly sharp blue eyes to be locked on, peeling away his defenses layer by layer in that unsettling way that only Cas could. However, the angel kept his penetrating gaze resolutely angled away. His eyes were downcast in fact; his posture crumpled like discarded newspaper while his wings caged them.

Dean sighed.

“It’s not. And okay, I get it.” Dean admitted in a whisper, as he relented to the confined space. “Did you uh… did you ward the place at least?” he asked. He was thankful that his hunting habits were providing something to talk about to fill the imposing silence.

Castiel merely nodded.

 

So much for conversation.


	6. Celestial Shopping List

In the musty darkness, Dean was again overcome by that cumbersome mix of concern and something else- that same something that was left warm and wanting around Cas, that he could not deal with right now (or ever, gods of Rock willing). Cas was making that exceedingly difficult however, apparently unwilling to grant him even a modicum of personal bubble that evening. The wings did eventually release him at some point during the strangely charged standoff, but Dean found he couldn’t budge. Instead, his gaze was locked on the angel. He rarely allowed himself the occasion to look; there was never any justifiable reason to beyond the silent yearnings he kept locked away.  

Warm and fuzzies aside, Dean was dismayed at what he saw. Cas seemed drained beyond all measure. The bags under his vessel’s eyes were so dark and cavernous they almost seemed contused, while the thin lines pulling at his expression were engraved so deep that the gravity of his face had increased tenfold. The disquieting heat lighting his core had all but evaporated, regardless of  _ where _ Cas’ head had just been hovering. Dean struggled to see his -  _ the  _ angel like this. Cas’ strength was something he and Sam had always taken for granted; an infinite force as permanent as gravity, as constant as the sunrise. Cas was supposed to be infallible; the angelic Ace in his back pocket... Though Dean shamefully realized that he hadn’t bothered lately, to check up on the state of the deck, as it were. Of course, he’d had his reasons, namely the considerable distraction of Sam acting like the lovechild of Lor and The Shining’s version of Jack Nicholson, but still. Cas was family to Dean, and he’d let the chip on his shoulder prevent him from checking in because he’d been too busy feeling self-sorry, worried and slighted to want to know. He’d failed Cas, on the most basic premises of friendship and brotherhood - notions that were foundational to his otherwise ramshackle existence. It was even worse when he realized that in his weakest moment, Castiel, Angel of the Lord, had deliberately sought refuge alongside  _ him _ , a wretched, selfish man constantly dancing on the cusp of ruination. The poetry of it was a little staggering. Dean wasn’t about to start composing stanzas about it, but the feeling burned acridly beneath his Enochian-scarred ribs.

It didn’t really help matters any when the broken angel wearing the empty shell of a man let his unkempt head fall against Dean’s stomach without any warning.  _ (Rude!) _ He held his breath for a few moments to prevent from coming undone under the weight of this new proximity. At first, he’d even justified (with pre-emptive relief) that Cas had lost consciousness, but the angel hadn’t done him the favor of lurching bonelessly to the side. He was perfectly still actually, save for his head gently bobbing to the swell of the hunter’s hitched breathing. Dean stood frozen as waves of hesitation broke over him.

_ “Goddammit Winchester, man up. You can handle this, it’s just Cas.”  _ he scolded himself inwardly. 

As if _ just Cas _ were a thing. This was the dude trying to pull a hostile takeover of Heaven. The rebel angel defying the long-held laws of the universe. The divine creature with preposterous eyes who dove into the very pits of hell to pull Dean out and who rebuilt him molecule by molecule.  _ That  _ Cas,  _ his _ Cas, had his head buried against his stomach in a rare show of helplessness. And he’d allowed Dean to witness it, wings and all. 

The gesture was profoundly intimate, more than anything they’d ever broached in their precarious dance, and Dean knew it. This of course made it galaxies beyond what the emotionally-constipated Winchester could handle. Yeah, this was about ten figures above his pay grade, but here he was anyway, just like all the other times the world decided to come apart at his feet, like it was his damned _ job  _ or something. (Well….)

“I’m  _ tired, _ Dean.” Cas mumbled from somewhere near Dean’s navel, his quaking confession interrupting the hunter’s cascading insecurities. 

“Tired of fighting. Tired of pretenses. Tired of duty. I try to do what’s right, but nothing is ever simple.” He trailed off into a weary sigh.  “It used to be simple.” 

Dean felt some of the tension drain at the unexpected admission. For the entire duration of Castiel’s war for Heaven so far, he’d not once heard him admit to lacking conviction. In fact, the angel’s preachy loops on how his war and its astonishing violence was “for the greater good” had slowly carved a canyon of incomprehension between them. It got to a point where Dean had had difficulty distinguishing his friend from any other tyrannical, late-night televangelist windbag. As such, even if it was rooted in what he could only imagine was immeasurable bloodshed, this raw, discouraged side of Cas was oddly refreshing. Spurred forward by this, it barely took Dean a second to decide to weave his fingers through Castiel’s dark locks in a show of comfort. 

It _ really _ didn’t feel as strange as he thought it would. 

“I know buddy, but trust me, that’s just the mortal coil talking,” Dean offered, awkwardly caressing his head, mostly because he’d started and dammit he wasn’t gonna chicken out now. (Plus whoa, SOFT, did angels use conditioner because-) “and besides, I’ll take you with a conscience anyday over being an obedient little angelbot, you get me?” 

Cas mutely nodded, but then leaned into the rare token, and Dean tried not to freak out too much at how nice that felt. It didn’t seem to soothe Cas’ cough much, but the angel didn’t seem to mind. In fact, Dean felt a smile tug at his lips when he noticed Cas rolling his forehead against his stomach, almost cat-like, so that his fingers might find a better angle at his scalp. Surreal as it was, Dean dug in generously, amused at the fact that even eternal wavelengths of celestial intent could recognize the value of a good old-fashioned head-rub.

“Once your mojo is back at 100% you’ll be able to block all that tiresome human shit out, don’t worry,” Dean snarked good-naturedly.

There wasn’t any warning before the electric blues were upon him again, launching tendrils of current down to his very bones. Dean was pondering whether he did that on purpose when the eyes in question began flashing again, from cold brimstone to the usual Cas blue (which, to Dean’s mind, someone should name a coloured pencil after). The effect was eerie, as though the angel himself were experiencing some sort of brown-out. He looked away quickly, seemingly self-conscious.

“About that...” Cas broached. There was an unusual tremor to his voice, and this _ should  _ have raised about a million flags by the time Dean peered down at him in wait. 

“I don’t mean to add to my  _ ‘celestial shopping list _ ’ as you say...”

Dean barely registered the amusing way Cas had emulated the air quote, even though his execution had been understandably half-assed. No. Stupid, based human that he was, Dean was far too intensely preoccupied with how the angel’s lips, thusly  _ smushed _ against him, kept brushing over his lower abdomen with every bassy word spoken, through the too-thin cotton of his shirt. He was practically  _ non copos mentis _ by the time he registered that Cas was still talking, and about things that actually sounded like they needed hearing. Thankfully, despite the ill-timed boner fog, his brain had deemed the terms “vessel” and “failing” important enough to register.

“Wait, what?” Dean coughed, all hands back on deck. 

“I said, my vessel is failing.” 


	7. Descent

On cue, the angel seemed to falter, head sliding just south enough for Dean to pull the emergency brake and yank him back up by the armpits. Close call.

“Cas, what the hell?” he balked while the angel hummed thoughtfully. His eyes were still doing the odd overloaded transformer thing, like Cas had swallowed a malfunctioning plasma globe.  

“I didn’t quite anticipate this but….it would seem that my hold on my vessel is weakening,” he returned casually. “The spell’s unfortunate side effect of forcefully manifesting my wings seems to be taking up most of my depleted strength and-” Castiel halted to catch his breath which in itself, was a disturbingly incongruous notion.

As nonchalantly as the angel was in trying to explain it, as though they’d merely been discussing the weather or the ingredients to an omelette, his words saw Dean’s alarm levels spike through the roof in an instant. The hunter’s hands immediately slid from the top of Cas’ head to his cheeks, forcing the slumping angel to peer up at him.

“Why didn’t you say something earlier!?” he scolded.

“I was enjoying the head rub,” Cas quipped, while a pool of Grace eerily lit the back of his mouth, behind his teeth.

Dean growled in annoyance before urgently fumbling into “Can’t you put your wings away then?” as though the angel hadn’t thought of that.

“If I could, I would have of course...but.”

 _Duh, Dean_.

“Okay, so just… uh...just rest until the spell wears off,” Dean suggested unhelpfully, releasing him.

Cas teetered like a buoy in rough seas, but managed to stay upright somehow. Dean suddenly wished that his brother and his gigantor nerd brain were here to lend him a freakin’ neuron or two, though he figured Sammy 2.0 was probably sandwiched between a pair of bosom buddies with dessert-themed names by now, given his recent tendencies. Besides, Cas’ needle looked like it had dropped from quarter tank to empty in the last 30 seconds. He’d deteriorated so fast Dean’s head was spinning, and he doubted Sam would even get there in time..

“I’ll call Bobby - I’m sure he’s got some lore on anti-angel magic and-”

“ _Dean_ ,” Cas interrupted but Dean ignored him, because he knew _that_ voice. It was the placating, call-to-desperate-action-or-we’re-all-going-to-die sort of one he used whenever the latest apocalypse had befallen them, or when some sort of typically grisly countermeasure was required… or occasionally, when the beer had run out. (He was a conscientious fridge-keeper.) Either way, Dean’s innards clenched with the anticipation of something drastically wrong and he bulldozed right past Cas and his stupid, harbinger-of-doom tone, cell in hand.

“No it’s fine, Bobby’s for sure got some old grimoires on it, I remember-

“DEAN.”

Fuck.

“ _What_!?!”

“There isn’t time. My vessel is failing. I don’t…”

Castiel’s words had taken on a definite rasp, each distressed syllable clawing at Dean’s insides. The telltale effervescence of Grace seemed to be simmering just beneath Cas’ surface, his eyes and words increasingly aglow with it.

“You _must_ go before that happens. It will not be human-friendly. I’m sorry, I didn’t know this would-”

“Can the apologies, Cas” Dean boomed all at once, heart racing, “Elvis is _not_ allowed to leave the building - remember what happened to your buddy Cyriel? We’re not doing that. We’re _not_.”

Cas was fixing to offer him the tired, glassy-eyed version of the (Celestial) People’s Eyebrow, but it was interrupted by another bout of just, _horrible_ coughing. Every heave seemed to cause a static spike in the room, accented by puffs of errant grace exiting Cas wherever they could - eyes, mouth, nose, pores - as though he were a wet sponge continually being stepped on. It didn’t take whole lot of Dean’s finely-honed hunter instinct to diagnose that these symptoms were a boatload of Not Good™.

“Cas you gotta give me something here,” Dean demanded.

Fortunately, a lifetime of experience with dangerous situations was tempering his mounting panic somewhat, but the ice was thin.

“I ain’t no warlock, but I’m pretty damned sure that you leave your vessel with a curse on you, you might not -”

There wasn’t any way in the universe he was going to finish that sentence.

“It won't be good. So tell me what we can do. It’s freaking magic. There’s _always_ a loophole!”

“Maybe, but ….”

Cas’ voice suddenly petered out as he hunched forward, clenching his sides in a vice grip. Knowing full well that angels were immune to what looked like a case of really bad tacos, Dean’s practiced cool was beginning to crack. Before he could intervene, Cas receded into the shroud of feathers.

And if that didn’t send Dean’s anxiety spiraling straight into the stratosphere.

 _“Goddammit,”_ he spat to himself, cursing himself for not recognizing sooner how _off_ Castiel had been. Or rather, enjoying the side-effects of his altered state a little much to acknowledge it as a more pressing issue before it was too late. It wasn’t like normal Cas ever _nuzzled his belly_ for fuck’s sake.

Dean was an idiot; a needy, repressed, affection-starved idiot, and now Cas was suffering for it, spiraling towards an untimely fate Dean had no idea how to prevent.

He knelt down to Cas’ eye-level, ailing quads be damned. It was his turn to violate the personal bubble commandment, and he ducked through the wall of feathers to get to Cas’ closed-off face. From this new vantage, it was instantly obvious why the angel wasn’t in a talking mood anymore. Namely, he was covered in sweat, strong jaw locked tight, while tiny fault-lines of creepy luminescent blue spidered up his neck, threatening to spill onto his face. He looked about ready to shatter from the inside out, into a thousand glowing angel-puzzle pieces. Dean couldn’t stop himself from framing Cas’ face with his hands, as though his mere mortal grasp might hold him together.

“Jesus Christ, Cas...” Dean gasped in barely-contained horror, “Hey look at me! Cas?! Open your eyes, dammit!”

The angel’s eyes remained resolutely glued shut, a low growl rising from his throat.

“I can’t…” he gritted, voice thin. Long, airy wisps of insurgent grace seeped from his mouth as he spoke. “I will burn you…No… control. Please Dean. _Go.”_

Dean’s stomach sank into his heels. This was essentially a holy supernova seconds from happening, but he remained anchored, helplessly watching. The descent was happening so fast it was mind-boggling - the cracks breaching Cas’ skin were actually beginning to sizzle beneath his palms. A second ago, Cas was making jokes (well, as close to jokes as Cas could conjure anyway), and now he was literally unravelling, one puff of expelled Grace at a time. Dean wished he could touch the intangible wisps somehow and stuff the AWOL little shits back inside Cas, but even then, he suspected it would have been like trying to stifle the flow of a broken dam with a cork.

“No no no, this can’t be happening… Cas c’mon, please,” Dean begged him, cradling his distorted features helplessly.

The black wings trembled and creaked overhead, cast in the same ethereal luminescence. Cas’ skin grew disturbingly transparent due to the azure blight searing through him, the iridescent flow of angelic power pulsing from his shuddering center towards the great appendages in long, glowing veins. The light seemed to be fading from his torso, replaced by those brittle, scaly crevasses tattooing themselves onto his frame in their wake. The wings were as giant willows; firm, unforgiving roots steadfastly sucking the life from where they’d been planted, leaving crumbling, ashen pieces of what was supposedly unbreakable behind. Dean suddenly cursed them beneath his breath, eyeing them hatefully.

Cas clearly needed more power, to tide him and his hungry wings over until the spell wore off, or until a better option presented itself. And just like that, as he beheld the terrible spectacle tenting them, the solution struck Dean like lightning. Even if it was just a bandaid for now, it was all they had. Because he sure as shit wasn’t going to let Cas go nuclear alone if this failed.

“Hey, you need a tall glass of soul-juice, buddy,” Dean said, green eyes sparking brightly.

The idea had sprouted from memories of how Bobby had explained their miraculous return from the Wild Wild Unsanitary West in search of the Colt. He’d also hadn’t failed to recall how the surly old hunter had colourfully described the unpleasant experience as Cas pulling a “reverse Alien” on him - not something he was looking forward to. Still, Dean knew he was right, because on cue, Cas visibly cringed at the proposition. He’d deal with the infuriating, self-immolating martyr later, for not bringing up this solution before he was literally on the verge of vaporization.

“Too dangerous,” the angel breathed. “I can’t control my… my hands.”

Castiel brought said limbs up between their faces, demonstrating the severe tremor rattling his fingers at his efforts to contain the holy light. Dean immediately tried to steady them in his.

“I would rip you apart,” he wheezed and Dean frowned into the increasing brilliance. Cas unfortunately had a point: if someone was going to pull a Kali-Ma on your soul, better that they have a steady hand and not turn your insides to pudding.

“You’ve put me back together before,” Dean reminded him gently, in a tone almost tender enough to quell the agonizing despair screaming behind his chest.  

“Go…” Cas insisted weakly, “Dean, _please_. I can’t… hold on.”

“Not happening!” Dean insisted loudly, because at this point, the formerly faint hum of Cas’ essence was now throbbing audibly, not unlike an overloaded subwoofer. “I _just_ got you back, so I ain’t going anywhere.”

“Foolish… pigheaded…..” Cas castigated him, words tumbling out in Enochian and English, each more anguished than the next. “I pulled you… out of Hell so you could live, you… you _assbutt_!!”

The mere effort of speech ignited more rivulets of Grace, and they crept ghoulishly from the corners of his crackling mouth. Dean kept trying to hold him together despite how the scorching glow seeped between his fingers. The angel’s palms weakly butted against his chest, in a vain attempt to expel him with bodily force. Dean choked back a wail of frustration at the attempt, but held steadfast to his face.

“Listen to me you glorified lava lamp, if you go up, so do I. That’s just how it’s gonna be. So _try._ I’m beggin’ you Cas, not for me, but for both of us, cuz I’ll never fucking forgive you if this is how we end because I - there’s so much I - Just… please - _please_ \- try.”

The wings bore down and crushed themselves inwards, seizing and electric as they tried to contain the impending event horizon. They forced him closer to the imploding angel, until his forehead touched the scorching surface of Cas’ skin. The heat hissed off him as his features bleached incandescent, and Dean was almost blinded.

It was all just too stupid. Too sudden. Dean had always known that his existence was an arthritic coin toss at the best of times, and he’d been okay with that. Massively deserving of it, even. But for it to end like this, in the dingiest room Bumfuck Nowhere had to offer... it was insulting and insufficient for a creature as vast and beautiful as Cas. If all Dean could offer was the meager comfort of his arms and his life such as it was, while celestial radiance consumed his best friend, he would freely give it. The realization hit him hard and far too late - dying was something he’d only ever considered doing for Sam, once upon a time, and yet…Cas was his family too, now. And Cas deserved more than the hand he’d been dealt, mistakes and all. Cas deserved everything, and once more, Dean had failed him.

He howled the angel’s name into the screeching inferno that Cas had become, and somehow, the chaos yielded just enough for Dean to hear his reply.

_“I'll try.”_


	8. Supernova

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm cheesy, but I try to be funny. Let me know how that comes across, if it works at all ;) And also, I'm very much aware of how many Destiel tropes/clichés are in this, but I'm kind of okay with it, lol. Still, always curious for feedback. Thanks for staying with me, still!

If Bobby’s description had been any indication, Dean had expected his ribs being cracked apart beneath him, his shuddering insides to be twisted at the blistering light thrust upon them. He’d expected to be devoured by Cas’ terrible aura while his heart was being sucked into a vacuum, being swallowed by a black hole personified. In short, he’d expected the usual horrors which were wrought unto mortal flesh by the awesome, soul-pulverizing effects of celestial power. He’d been exposed to the deafening, otherworldly scald of it many times before, starting all the way back when Cas only knew how to speak “ear-shatteringese” and had seemingly attempted to babble the dictionary at him in that post-resurrection gas station.  

What he had not expected however, was for Cas to surge forward in his clattering, fragmented state, and crush what was left of his his grace-gagged mouth onto his.

Of course, at first, as molten fountains of Grace had begun pouring from the angel in great arching surges, scorching Dean in the process, the ‘kiss’ was far from the stuff of fantasies. He’d wanted to scream in fact (and not in a good way), but found himself almost magnetically sealed to Cas while angel mojo blindingly exploded all around. It branded white hot pain over all his other senses, while their lips remained the only thing anchoring them to their physical bodies. Insofar as all the ways he’d admittedly pictured this happening in the deepest, darkest corners of his brain, this version was definitely the most removed from his sexy (if unoriginal) backseat-of-the-Impala scenarios, and frankly more than a little terrifying. Dean was no Casanova, but having his face melted wasn’t exactly his idea of a hot date.

 _“It’s like being tied to a comet,”_ Jimmy Novak mused unhelpfully, somewhere in Dean’s starlight-burnt brain.

Because, yeah: being “touched by an angel” was pretty fucking bewildering, to put it mildly, even though the pain was beginning to ebb, replaced by something else entirely. By the time Dean could wrap his limited human consciousness around it, a plume of liquid heat had begun to swell in his chest and he was suddenly sure, in that surreal, heart-stopping moment, that Cas was _physically_ grabbing onto his soul somehow, like some sort of metaphysical lamprey. (Slap that one on a Valentine's Day card, he thought). Of course, he wouldn’t have put it past himself to have an out-of-body experience about kissing Cas, honestly, but this was something else… something _profound_ , damnit. This kiss was an event, a big fucking happening - like the Dark Crystal becoming whole again, like Luke blowing up the Death Star - and Dean was lost to this massive realignment of his universe before he could even properly appreciate that this was also most likely a goodbye.

It was too much like a deliverance, like being plunged into a cold river after decades limping through the desert. It was like being cast in the warm glow of home, its door being widely strewn open when you’ve been standing frozen on the front porch for as long as you can remember; like every country song Dean had ever heard. It was a sensation somewhere between having the best goddamned orgasm in his life, and literally being thrown into the sun. He was Icarus with his pants down, and he had no idea why this incomparable rapture had befallen him, how he had transformed into incomprehensible molten sunlight, where he began and Cas ended, if even he did end.  

All he could grasp in that mind-shattering instant was the desire to respond before his atoms went up in smoke.

And okay, so what if years’ worth of pent-up emotion was leaking through the floodgate, and nevermind that this might very well be the last and only opportunity Dean might ever have to smother Cas, enormous and unfathomable as he was now, with the all the affection the weird little nerd deserved, before he literally melted Dean into plaid-flavoured Play-Doh. If these were to be his final moments anyway, all the hunter cared to concentrate on amidst the blistering chaos all around, were the sinfully soft lips pressed against his own.

The embrace deepened, and a tide of warmth that felt like his heart liquefied, or grace, or both, drowned out all the background noise. The entire world - the entire freaking universe - had been reduced to kissing Cas, to breathing Cas in, to devouring him from the inside out as his lips and tongue and teeth ravenously sought him out from all possible angles. He shook and gasped at the feel of it, reeling at his explorations being returned tenfold, being made whole by the sudden certainty that this was right and divine and immovable. He poured everything he was into that kiss, and let Cas take what he needed from the ineffable blaze erupting between them. It was everything he had, everything he was, and Cas could have it if he so wanted. And, thusly lost and found all at once, Dean let himself fall, tethered to the angel he’d loved with every molecule since before even knowing his name.


	9. Disney Princesses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah okay, it's a cheesy-ass plot twist but whatever I went with it, ha! I never said I was a *good* writer. ;D

For all he knew, the heavenly light-show had wrapped-up a million years ago.

It was only the sobering crash of the cheap side-lamp as it ricocheted off the wall thanks to an untamed wing which saw Dean’s eyes bolt open suddenly... only to be left staring directly into the angel’s. The angel who then sheepishly detached himself from Dean’s lips and _very politely_ extricated his arms from around Dean’s shoulders….and _ever_ _so considerately_ untangled his legs from behind Dean’s heaving back.

Dean ran cold and unsettled at the readjustment, but obligingly climbed off him too, since he’d seen fit to kiss him through a couple of galaxies and straight into the damn mattress. Stumbling like a newborn calf, he sank wordlessly back to his knees on the garishly carpeted floor. Caught his breath. Meanwhile, Cas righted himself in one swift, stiff motion, a somber jack-in-the-box, until he was perched rigidly on the side of the bed. The inevitable wall of awkward silence touched down, merciless and devastating. After a painfully long minute or ten, Cas finally spoke.

“Dean, I-”

“Your uh… your wings are still…” Dean muttered, swallowing hard through his interruption. A shaking finger was lamely pointed in accusation at the twin shadows blooming behind Cas’ shoulders.

Cas did the head tilt thing while his brows quirked in confusion, and a tentative flap confirmed the lingering presence.

“It seems they’ll be around for a while longer,” he concluded dully, that breakfast omelette timbre having too easily returned to his voice. Like he hadn’t just come back from turning into a Burning-Bush Level Revelation, like he _hadn’t_ just actually transformed into a literal star before Dean’s very eyes. “Although they no longer feel unstable. I’ll take it as a win.”

Dean felt the ghost of a smirk reach him at the borrowed expression, regaining his feet after that. He cleared his throat loudly and brushed off his rumpled tee; a portrait of painful, bewildered self-consciousness. His sense of limitless unworthiness prevented him from even looking at Cas and his swollen pink lips, and his floofy hair and his huge, expectant eyes. Dean being Dean though (ie: a stubborn bastard), he eventually did anyway, concern overriding his mortal embarrassment. He clamped adrenaline-soaked hands on Cas’ shoulders, as though to confirm to himself that the angel was actually still whole.

“Cas, are you okay?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“You’re sure. It worked?”

“ _Yes,_ Dean. The spell was suppressed thanks to the soul transference, though apparently there are some residual side-effects. Nothing permanent. I think. I feel…. better. Thank you.”

“Good, good, awesome, that’s good,” Dean parroted stiffly.

A lengthy, trembling sigh escaped him, and his hands instantly retreated to the back of his neck as he stood immobile, looking like he’d seen a ghost, or whatever it was that actually could freak out a hunter. Apparently this involved frazzled, doe-eyed warriors of the Lord and their criminally-smoochable lips. And oh yeah, transcendental soul-sex or whatever the hell _that_ had been, just now.

“Dean-”

“So that was. Uh. Th-that was.” He never finished the sentence. God, he was going to hate himself later. More so than usual. He spent a few more seconds desperately contemplating what to do with his hands and ultimately failing, because his fingers kept travelling to his stubble-scoured lips.

“So,” he stumbled, “What uhm…  Do angels ki-... I thought it was through the stoma - just… well, why uhm,   _why’d you kiss me Cas?_ ”

“Dean, please, _sit down_ ,” Castiel commanded him softly.  Dean did.

“Are _you_ alright?” the angel asked him first, very carefully, quite deliberately _not_ touching him. Dean suddenly got the distinct impression that Cas was treating him a bit like a spooked fawn. He wasn’t wrong.

“Me?! Yeah. I’m, yeah.” He exhaled. Fought the urge to touch his mouth again. Then:

“Damn Cas, I gotta say, you sure know how to use those things.”

Castiel stared canted questions at him, flexing a wing in curiosity. Dean half-snorted, despite his awkwardness.

“Your _lips_ I mean, not the... y’know…” he made a vague flapping gesture. Dean’s frail attempt at humour had failed spectacularly, thanks to Cas' brutal literality. 

God, words were _hard_.

At least he’d successfully holstered the finger-guns threatening to point at Cas’ mouth. He was grateful for that small mercy, and more thankful still that Cas had chosen to ignore the compliment.

“You’ll probably feel a bit shaky from the transfer for a little while,” Cas offered instead, eschewing the topic entirely.

A soothing hand was on Dean’s forehead then, and Dean implored himself not to melt into it while the cooling hum of grace cleared his brain. Amazing how that stuff could either cure all your ills, or raze an entire continent in an instant. Tomato, tomahto.

Perhaps encouraged by the relief, Dean grasped onto Cas’ wrist then, and pulled him into a sudden hug. Cas went rigid with surprise, but Dean held on long enough for him to relax into it and return it. After a few moments, he’d even buried his face in the crook of Dean’s neck. It seemed like Cas had needed this too, and that made Dean squeeze a bit harder. He pressed in until he could quell the burning in his eyes and throat, convince himself that Cas was still here.

“Don’t _ever_ do that to me again,” Dean croaked into his shoulder, “If there’s a solution, _we try it_ , no matter what. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

“You _knew_ I wouldn’t risk you.” Cas stated then, more of a realization than a question.

“Call it a calculated risk. I know us pretty well, but that was a pretty close call, you idiot.”

He’d have to properly examine their little family group’s disturbing tendency for self-sacrifice later, but for now, he was just grateful it had successfully plucked Cas from the abyss.

He patted him roughly on the back and released him, albeit a touch hesitantly. For an angel, he was warm. Inviting. He risked a glance at him. Cas was calmly seated to his right, as perfectly pressed and coiffed as the day he’d first appeared to him in that dilapidated barn. He looked as though nothing at all had happened, as if Dean’s entire perception of reality and himself _hadn’t_ just shifted beneath his very soles, leaving him raw and disoriented. And more than a little turned on, but that was kind of a moot point around Cas. Had been for a while.  Even so, he chose the worst possible question. Obviously.

“So uhm, ” he managed, clearing his throat, “You gonna explain the tonsil hockey Cas?

Even in his red-faced haze, Dean couldn’t prevent the tingle of fondness for how human Cas seemed just then, as he pinched his lips together, frowning like he was considering a particularly difficult math problem. Most likely he was contemplating if “tonsil hockey” was a _real_ sport, what rules it could possibly have, whether he’d won or not, before ultimately deciding that this had to be one of Dean’s confusing euphemisms. Dean grinned at the very visible computations contorting the angel’s features.

“Well,” Cas attempted, “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, really.”

Dean broke out of his stupor to huff out an incredulous laugh. He was aiming to bitingly inform Cas that he was _pretty_ sure he’d never sucked face with an angel before thank-you-very-much, but flashes of red hair and big brown eyes imposed themselves mid-thought. Wrong angel.

Boy, for a Righteous Man, he sure got around.

“I… well uh, I felt -... you were ….” Dean coughed. “I just mean, that seemed kind of _new_ to me Cas, so could you humour me here?” he mumbled, stumbling somewhere between embarrassment, regret and fond remembrance as Anna’s name stayed lodged in his throat.

“I meant with with demons,” Cas said quietly, consternation creasing his brow.

_“What?”_

“They seal their soul deals with kisses for a reason. I thought that, given the uh, circumstances, borrowing their technique couldn’t hurt.”

Dean stared at him intently for a while before his sarcasm rolodex ultimately took over.

“So what, are they all secret Disney Princesses?”

Dean couldn’t help himself; decades of dad-joke defense mechanisms were hard to subdue. Castiel, meanwhile, had the look of forced patience reserved for overpacked subways and screaming infants on airplanes. He sighed, gathering himself while a curious blush coloured his cheeks.  

“Moments of _intimacy_ , where the person is _completely_ vulnerable, are the easiest ways to access the soul, other than literally tearing into it,” Castiel provided, lacing his long fingers together and setting them primly over his knees. He stared at his impeccably-pressed pants, as though their polyester folds held the secrets of the universe.

“So….?” Dean egged him on.

“ _So_ ,” he added after a few moments, “Such situations can be _provoked_ in order to expose the soul. For humans, it’s often in the form of physical and emotional vulnerability. So violence, or alternately closeness, depending on the case.”

Dean wasn’t sure if he should ask why he had earned the latter, while Bobby had gotten his guts stir-fried. Shaky hands. Right. _Right._

Like so many other emotionally-charged issues, these were just more gaping potholes he’d have to detour and leave in the rear-view. It didn’t make it any easier to digest though, because as loath as he was to admit it out loud, their previous exchange had felt like a hell of a lot more than a last-ditch exercise of spiritual mechanics. And surprisingly, he’d felt pretty damned okay with that. What really rankled him was the idea that this whole thing might just have felt like celestial indigestion to Cas. It was a distinct possibility; angels were pretty robotic, even when putzing around with the very cores of people. But this was _Cas_. Profound Bond and all. Warm, hug-happy badass Cas. Surely he couldn’t have -

“Dean, are you sure you’re alright?”

Thoughts whirling worse than an Arizona dust devil, Dean did his best to refocus on the topic at hand. He nodded. This wasn’t an enigma he’d ever come close to solving before, and he certainly wasn’t going to tonight,  exhausted and still more than a little whisky-pickled as he was. Spells. Those were something Dean could handle. Potential rejection of his tenuously-acknowledged feelings for his best friend was not.

“So basically you’re saying make a guy swoon, and boom, soul unlocked, spell broken? Like I said, sounds a bit Snow White to me...”

Cas licked his lips in thought, his gaze flickering upwards.

“Well, fairytales often have origins rooted in - You... _swooned_?”

There was the slightest hint of a grin tugging at Cas’ mouth.

Grimacing, Dean smacked him lightly on the shoulder.

“You were about to explode Cas, call it a gasp okay?” Dean reasoned, flustered. “B’sides, don’t sound so surprised… like I said, you ain’t the worst kiss I’ve ever had…”

Dean hoped his jokingly-cocked eyebrow would successfully convey that he was kidding around my guy, my good buddy, and that hey, we’re all super-cool here with platonic kissing, bro-migo. Fortunately, Cas disarmed those frail mechanisms with a dose of his patented earnestness.

“Thank you,” Cas replied, solemn. “I am glad it was satisfactory, despite the circumstances.”

He seemed so genuinely pleased that Dean couldn’t help grinning. Leave it to Cas to be concerned about performance issues during a near-death experience.

“So,” he teased, “Did you kiss Bobby?”

Castiel gifted him with a withering look potent enough to dessicate the Amazon.

“Just checking.”


	10. Bond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, so much fluff.

Dean rested his elbows against his knees and worked at the copious knots at the back of his neck, mostly for lack of anything else to do in the awkward silence. He couldn’t remember the last time Cas had stayed so long, and his currently moratorium on popping out of existence mid-sentence was ironically unsettling. He hadn’t planned this far ahead.

“I wanted to thank you, Dean” said Cas then. “For having faith, and reminding me to as well. I have done a number of terrible things in the name of this War and… I…”

The sentence rambled into silence, though Dean knew too well what he’d insinuated.  It was a feeling he was very well-versed in.

“You didn't  _deserve_ that spell, Cas. No matter what you did. We’ve all done shitty things. Unforgivable things, maybe. But your penance is to keep fighting, you get me? To keep trying for the people you had to leave behind, and for those who could still be saved. That’s the only meaning to any of this. The only reason.”  

The angel’s eyes were eyes slanted in silent contemplation, likely boring holes into the hideous carpet by now.

“I’m glad you’re still here, for what it’s worth.”

Cas nodded and murmured, quiet as a prayer, “It’s worth a lot.”  

His presence was heavy and warm beside Dean, but resolutely still.

Dean had come to learn that timeless a creature as he was, Cas spent much of his time unnervingly motionless, simply waiting, watching as the Earth spun, pondering millions of things Dean could never truly fathom. He wasn’t sure if this was one of those times, but in his unsettled haste for distraction, he glimpsed a few stray feathers in his periphery. The huge wings had shuddered inwards around them again, to contrast the angel’s seemingly tranquil immobility. Dean had to wonder if the things were great big mirrors of Cas’ sometimes cryptic mood, sending up feathery hints of emotion while he composed his other features into their usual placidity. He wondered what could be read into them. How much he’d missed with Cas keeping them concealed all the time. How much hurt they carried.

Without as much hesitation as he probably should have felt, he reached for a few of the feathers in his orbit. He heard the sharp intake of breath from beside him, but deliberately ignored it.

“This is still kinda freaky, man,” he mused, gently stroking the soft expanse.

“I resent that,” Cas retorted.

Dean grinned, but a faint trace of melancholy crossed his features.

“Sammy would put you under a microscope, you know. You should be glad it’s just me here.”

His meandering words were met only with thick silence. Curious, he glanced over at Cas just in time to catch him with his eyes closed, head tilted slightly back. Even in the relative darkness, there was no mistaking the blissful expression lighting his features. Dean’s stomach coiled, propelling a draught of heat which reached his face (and elsewhere) in record time. He didn’t pull away. Despite his trepidation, it was nice to indulge in something comforting for a change. To properly care for a friend that he … well, a _good_ friend who he realized had been suffering just as much as he had.

“I _am_ glad.” Cas finally answered in a sort of half-sigh, his eyes resolutely shut. His voice was scrubbed rough and smoky by fatigue and distraction, and it ignited merciless sparks of delight along Dean’s spine.

Cas swayed every so slightly, seemingly lost to the sensations sparked by Dean’s fingers. Dean felt his windpipe just about close up at the expression on his face.

“This uh, feel good Cas?” he smirked, though his voice had become remarkably feeble. His fingers were completely submerged in the onyx feathers now, with no inclination to stop.

“ _Immensely_ ,” the angel purred unselfconsciously.

Before Dean could acknowledge that, or swallow the brick suddenly lodged in his throat, Cas extended his arm and the rich, tingling joy of fingers suddenly scratching along his scalp made Dean groan out loud.

“Like that.” Cas explained. “It feels… closest to that, I think. One of the more enjoyable human responses to stimulation, I would wager.”

Dean could think of about two dozen other “responses to stimulation” he was wishing to instigate with his fingers, but he refrained.

“That’s…. awesome,” Dean eventually agreed, his arms falling to the delicious assault on his head. “I kinda wish my head had a 20 foot wingspan now.”

Cas said nothing to that, probably flummoxed by the metaphorical inaccuracy of it all, but instead replied by digging his fingers in with gusto.

If anyone had informed Dean even 12 hours ago that he and Cas would be engaged in a mutual, 3AM scratching session on a grubby motel bed, he’d probably have stabbed them in the eye with a knife dipped in lamb’s blood. Still, it had been a long, weird night, even by the standards of the long weird nights he was used to. He still didn’t know what to make of the mess of emotions left in the wake of all this, and at this point, the solution either required copious amounts of beer or about 6 years of sleep.

In fact, Dean was slowly capitulating to the growing blur of his vision, and to the trembling sway of his shoulders under Cas’ gentle (and hijacked) ministrations. Having one’s soul leeched was an exhausting affair it seemed, as swirling black spots polka-dotted the back of his eyelids with every heavy blink.

“You should rest,” Castiel surmised wisely at the sight of him, arctic gaze lingering as always. He released Dean’s teetering crown. The wings flared slightly.

“Yeah,” Dean conceded, letting himself flop gracelessly sideways onto the dusty mattress with a dull thud. He couldn’t bring himself to care about the residual blood spatter on the pillow, or about how his legs brushed Cas’ lower back as he indulgently stretched himself out, slow and bone-tired, head still humming pleasantly.

Still, as was the Winchester way, something had spoiled in his gut despite the peaceful atmosphere. He eyed Cas a touch sourly.

“I guess you’ll be going back upstairs to the big Chicken Coop in the sky now,” Dean accused, his eyes closing despite his best efforts. “Love ‘em and leave ‘em, eh Cas?”

He’d of course been going for ‘bitingly detached’ rather than ‘whining pre-schooler’, but it was what it was. He perhaps would have cringed at his self-destructive neediness had he the energy, but instead, he silently reckoned with the familiar flush of mortification as his reply soon came. It was in the form of Cas’ weight lifting off the end of the bed. He damned the tiny ember of hope that had treacherously lit in the hollow of his chest, now stamped out cold at Cas’ departure.

He should’ve been used to this by now.

“‘Course…” Dean muttered into the pillow. It smelled faintly of iron and thunderstorms; an angelic fingerprint as familiar to him as gun smoke. He bent his arms over his face to stifle the ache in his chest and the sting of his eyes.

His sulking was nevertheless interrupted by the muted sound of fabric being draped; a soft flutter of air. Before he could process it, a soft expanse of heated weight settled atop him as the bed lurched in all its rusted, squeaky glory. Feathers tickled his nose, but the smile cresting upon his face in the dark was for vastly different reasons.

“I can’t go anywhere while my wings remain on this plane.” justified that unfairly sumptuous voice from the shadows just beyond, each words blowing whispered promises across his neck, tantalizingly close.

He swallowed down his heart which was threatening to climb out of his throat.

“Stay, then.”

The feathers pulled inwards, encasing Dean in a blanket of living, pulsing warmth.

“Hey Cas?”

Just next to him, Cas hummed softly in response while the wings shifted slightly overhead.

“I’m glad you’re okay. You scared the shit out of me.”

Dean’s breath stilled for a moment as the gentle press of a palm caressed his cheek in answer. Unthinkingly, his own hand rose to cover it, pressing it to him with a rush of hopeful urgency, as though to confirm it was real under the dreamlike cover of dark.

“Cas, did you…”

The query tapered off, his nerve dissolving under the frantic hammering of his pulse.

“...Dean?”

The trace of genuine concern lacing Cas’ voice compelled him to explain, as much as the words butted up against his teeth.

“That ‘soul train’ we got on back there…”

Despite the shadow, he could picture Cas’ brows pinching together.

“I understand it is a disturbing experience for most humans. I’m sorry.”

His voice was so low, so close, that Dean thought fleetingly that one small stretch of his neck would allow him to stifle it with his mouth.

“No… no that’s not it.” He swallowed, trying to compel the mess in his brain into something more cohesive, but the immensity of the experience was hard to parse. So was this delicious closeness, veiled in the soothing privacy of shadow. His fingers had laced themselves around Cas’ by their own volition, and he realized he’d been holding them to his chest, tight.

“I… felt you. All around. Inside. I… it was… a lot.”

He’d never live _that_ one down, but it was true nonetheless.

“I’m sor-”

“It was crazy, Cas. Amazing, I mean… face-melting aside an’ all.”

He felt the angel squeeze his hand in acknowledgement.

“Is it always like that?” he whispered quickly, before his courage bled out.

He felt the wings still above him for a moment before they exhaled inwards, pressing him close. There was a long silence where he felt the angel tense beneath his fingers. For a moment, Dean was desperately afraid that despite his assurances and warm touch, Cas would vanish.

“On the few occasions I’ve had to do it, for most, it was _terrifying_.”

“Then why….”

“You might not like the answer” Cas reasoned softly.

Dean was undeterred, and voraciously curious. And, as Cas had astutely pointed out, terrified, but for entirely different reasons than fatal dread. His heart kicked violently at his throat.

“Try me.”

Fingers wiggled out of his grip, and arms slinked around his taught frame. Dean’s breath stilled in his lungs as Cas butted his forehead against Dean’s chest in the dark, a firm hand splayed just beneath, above his heart.

“It’s because we are bonded, Dean.” he explained simply, as though this was the most obvious truth in the universe. Perhaps it was.

_Duh, Winchester._

Another pause, and words were whispered against his heart that shook him apart.

“Yours is the brightest, most beautiful soul I have encountered in all of Creation. It calls my Grace to it even from the darkest of places. I know its brilliance by heart, and being able to touch it… to hold it freely _without_ the flames of Hell trying to rip it from my grasp, well… it is indescribable even in all the languages I know. To feel it resonate within me, to hold it so close again… it was wondrous. That’s why. You probably felt my joy at the experience of it. I am glad it spared you from the less pleasant effects.”

 _“...Oh.”_ Dean whispered and dammit, this time he _did_ swoon. He was too soon awash in all the ways he was sorely ill-equipped and undeserving to answer such a declaration.

“Cas…”

“Sleep now, Dean. I will be here when you wake up.”

Cas stirred slightly. Dean could have sworn there were hands on his cheeks again, and a soft brush of lips against his forehead. His suspicions were too soon extinguished by the gentle brush of grace for him to really tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally the last chapter. I did continue this fic, but I'm still hesitant because I feel it's sufficient as is. (Cheese overload, haha). It was meant to be a short, intense vignette in the middle of the night. A blip on their radar, I guess, that could have happened "between the lines". The rest I've written for this goes beyond that, but has no definable end yet, so for all intents and purposes, this is the end. I hope you enjoyed the angsty fluff-fest, and apologies for any inconsistencies/cliches. I'd be delighted to hear what your thoughts were. Thank you warmly for reading! Cheers!


	11. Lesson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An addendum to the fic, for fun. It's all crack, honestly, but whatever. :D

Of course, Cas _wasn’t_ there when Dean woke up.

In the insultingly sobering light of early day, Dean wasn’t entirely sure that whole episode from the previous night wasn’t some sort of horny Disney fever-nightmare anyway, so he was altogether unsurprised to find the space beside him empty, and his shoulders cold. Equally unsurprising was the potent sting of absence, hooking itself all too deeply into the thick of Dean’s throat and sticking there, despite his diligent attempts at choking it down.

Bleary-eyed and sighing, the hunter hauled himself out of bed, unsure of what to make of the solitude. Despite Cas’ inclination for beeping into the veil at the drop of a hat, Dean had to crack a mirthless  grin at the irony of being on the receiving end of his patented fun-and-run tactic for a change. Of course, this wasn’t exactly a one-night stand. It wasn’t like they’d… well. They’d shared a bed, for sleeping, post-kiss-of-life-and-heartfelt-declarations-of-bondedness, and while absolutely weird and intense (and well fuck, also kinda nice), it was mostly innocent. (Okay, 97% innocent, if he counted the half-conscious snuggling he begrudgingly suspected of himself.) Either way, if Dean was left feeling the same vague shame and disappointment as some sort of jilted celestial Tinder date, that was his problem, not the angel’s. Poofing out of sight and mind was business as usual for Cas, after all.

The implications of all that, along with his buzzing, wanting lips, would have to be relegated to the Baggage Train, just like all the other shit he free-handedly stowed back there under the efficient watch of whisky and denial. Daddy issues? Baggage Train. Abandonment issues? Baggage Train.  Kissing-your-immortal-best-friend-who-has-now-disappeared issues? _Choo-fucking-choo._

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the butt of his palms, he grimly took stock of the motel room.

The harsh shafts of daylight streaming in from paper-thin curtains illuminated a mess the likes of which no meager deposit could hope to recover. Broken furniture, torn carpets, shattered lamps… it was almost an improvement to the unforgivable chintz of the place, but he wasn’t sure the owner would appreciate his decorating flair (which he found himself dubbing “Angelic Tornado Chic”). In fact, the only thing which had been spared aside from the bed, was a single wooden chair which seemed at least 10 years older than the Impala. It stood starkly in the middle of the room, untouched in its arresting ugliness like the drabbest eye of a hurricane. It was draped with an impeccably-folded swatch of beige.

Dean startled, approaching the monument with experienced, if perplexed caution.

Trench-coat, cheap dress shirt and formal navy overcoat were all ceremoniously stacked on the sad piece of seating in fact, with a striped blue tie carefully planted atop the mountain like a cheery, bureaucratic flag.

Okay so somewhere, somehow, for some reason, Cas was parading around half-naked, apparently on purpose. (Because no Big Bad Dean had ever encountered had taken up the fearsome habit of meticulously folding the clothes of its victims… not even the ones who _wore_ their victims.) He did a quick sweep of the room, which revealed no such exposed Angel of the Lord anywhere. Dean shook himself from his Inappropriate Morning Thoughts™ and attempted instead to find relief in the clothing totem’s conspicuous absence of pants.

Increasing concern soon overriding his ponderings, he hastily pulled on a fresh t-shirt and poked his head out the front door. He gained nothing but the retina burn of a sun-scorched concrete parking lot for his efforts. However, now that he was outside, he was privy to a vague gasping sound which sent his stomach plummeting to his bare feet. He hastily equipped his knife in anticipation of some otherworldly encounter going wrong (because fuck his life, obviously) and bolted out the door.

He maneuvered around the motel’s spectacularly drab units with well-honed stealth, creeping silently towards the back yard. He peered around the corner, which gave onto a small grassy clearing, complete with sun-bleached plastic chairs that hadn’t seen a bum in at least two decades, which sloped into a dense wood.

In the middle of said lawn stood Castiel, plain as day with coal- black wings fully extended and bathed in a brilliant column of forest-filtered morning light. And damn him, Dean stopped right on his heels, enraptured by none other than his best friend _,_ who just happened to look like a goddamned Renaissance masterpiece emerging from the receding shadows of waning dawn. Considering the dazzling effect, Dean could be pardoned for gaping like a gutted fish for several seconds while he recovered his wits (and his man-card). He took a steadying breath and stooped to pick up the knife he’d dropped. He'd come shamefully close to chopping off a toe in favour of watching Angel Gone Wild.

Thing was, while indeed topless, Cas wasn’t exactly doing anything even remotely wild (much to Dean’s innermost chagrin). In fact, unless the angel was fixing to merge yoga and photosynthesis, Dean hadn’t the slightest inkling of what he was doing. Not that he cared just then.

Compared to the glimpse of wings he’d spied last night, this version, freed from the dusty motel room filter, was freaking spectacular and was pretty much wiping away any coherent thought he had. The wings moved like enormous, slow-motion sails attached to Cas’ back, floating idly on the breeze, curving towards the emerging sunlight. The entrancing vision was only enhanced by their contrast to Cas’ white bronze skin, which shimmered faintly with sweat and rippled with the practiced movement of lean muscles beneath. Dean soon found that exactly _none_ of his usual de-escalating mantras were helping to reign in his near-Biblical levels of fangirlish admiration at this point. It was like watching an angelic Harlequin novel unfold in front of him, and he _could not_ bring himself to mind.

Fuck but Cas was beautiful, more than any mere mortal should be expected to process, and oh yeah, Dean was doomed. It was dizzying to think that those majestic things had lain softly curled around him, and that he’d been mere inches from that expanse of firm, miraculous flesh - He was _toast_ . It was like that stupid kiss had sledgehammered through the last bastion of resistance he’d had, and now he _couldn’t stop_ seeing Cas in Rapture vision every time he laid eyes on him. He forcibly reminded himself that while Cas had temporarily attained this holier-than-life iteration of his vessel, he was also the same dude who said “assbutt” with Biblical conviction, and who had taken Dean’s heated suggestion of “taking a hike” literally one time, returning from Mount Fuji a day later with souvenir charms. In short, Dean dutifully reckoned with the idea that okay, he was undeniably crushing on an infinitely wise, glorious and powerful being… who also happened to be a completely adorable doofus. Somehow, the realization made it worse, because in that second, he knew he wasn’t in it just for the rippling pectorals. He’s always known. Cas could’ve been wearing Judge Judy and he’s pretty sure he’d still - well, anyway. Cas was _Cas,_  and Dean was screwed.

It took a while, but once he’d painstakingly regained some pale imitation of dignified footing, Dean risked a glimpse at said doofus’ face again.

Because almost more fascinating than the display of gigantic onyx wings, was the expression the angel wore, flushed pink with the telltale signs of exertion. Clearly, as punctuated by Cas’ heaving chest, there were more than a few humanizing vestiges left over from the spell. As such, there was no way Dean could prevent the curl of his lips at the uncharacteristic sight of Cas sticking his tongue out in some unconscious show of gargantuan effort. Seconds later, the noble wings flapped strong and steady, a stunning vision in their own right... only to fling Cas across the small clearing like a dust bunny.

And so it was that Castiel, Majestic Angel of the Lord, Sacred Warrior of Heaven and Upsettingly Attractive Michelangelo Painting Personified, landed with a muted _“Oof”_ about 15 feet away from his starting point, and it took every ounce of restraint Dean had accumulated in his entire lifetime not to burst out into hysterical laughter. He failed.

“Good morning Dean,” the crumpled mass of angel and feathers grumbled from a distance.

Thusly revealed, Dean tried his damnedest to look casual as he approached.

“Hey Cas,” he greeted, “What uh… whatcha doing?”

With a frustrated groan, Cas regained his bare feet, the gleaming wings blooming behind him innocently like anemones in a warm current. Their staggering reach made him appear to tower over Dean, but the impression was corrected by the irritated moue of the angel’s mouth hanging all too near, almost precisely at lip-level. Dean cleared his throat, looking away while Cas’ eyes narrowed.

“I’m _trying_ to fly,” was the explanation, bathed in tones of determined annoyance. “I’m not sure how long I will be ‘stuck’ like this,” he clarified, “but it’s become painfully clear to me that celestial flight is far different from physical lift. I know the physics of it by heart, down to the atomic structure of air molecules as they move, and I know that my Grace should compensate for the heaviness of a human body but I….” At this point, the endearing grimace was too much for Dean not to comment.

“Easier said than done?” he provided wryly.

“ _Yes_ ,” Cas growled, unfurling the wings one by one as though to stretch them out. “It’s rather infuriating.”

“‘Kay well, in the meantime, dontcha think this game of naked angel pinball you’re playing might attract some attention from the yocals?” Dean asked, sweeping a demonstrative hand towards the motel suites and their _millions_ of windows.

“Aside from you, Sam and the owner, there is only one other guest here, and they will remain unconscious until I am _good and done_ , as you say,” he assured tersely. “And I am _not_ naked. Physical wings are just… inconvenient when it comes to clothing.”

Dean knew the angel’s terrifying skill set well enough not to question any of that, but the mention of his brother steered him straight past the occasion to mock Cas’ clothing situation.

“Sam’s back?”

“He returned early this morning while you were asleep and left again. He said he would ‘catch you later’ and left for the town archive, apparently to research another case. He seemed… aloof, considering I haven’t seen him in a few weeks.”

“Yeah, I’m not surprised.” Dean confirmed darkly.

At this, the angel frowned, the wings pausing their aerial tai-chi or whatever it was they were doing, in concert. A sturdy, solemn hand landed on Dean’s shoulder as he stared sullenly into the ground.

“The war in Heaven is of dire importance, Dean… but nevertheless, I promise will do my best to help you find out what’s wrong with Sam. Because I do see it. There is something…. _off_. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

Dean allowed a tiny nod, only minimally reassured, though he patted Cas’ hand in acknowledgement. It was something, at least. A pinprick of hope through the dark fabric of worry he’d been draped in lately. He gingerly released the angel’s warm fingers because again, he’d unwittingly let a touch between them last longer than was warranted in the exposing light of day.

“So uh, flying lesson not going well, huh?”

An eye roll. 

“No.”

To demonstrate the point, Cas knelt down and beat his wings with gusto, resulting in a wind-tunnel that almost knocked Dean off his feet. The exercise granted Cas about 4 feet of height above the ground before he was unceremoniously expelled into the grass like a bug from a windshield. He seemed a lot less concerned about the violent impact than Dean was, judging by the number of craters pockmarking the lawn. He was already brushing himself off by the time Dean reached him, helping hand and shit-eating grin in tow.

“Dean. It’s _not_ funny,” Cas insisted, grass stains smudged into his chest and arms. He looked like an entire kindergarten class had held him down and doodled all over him with green wax crayons.

“No, it’s _hilarious_ actually _,_ ” Dean snickered.

Unthinkingly, he reached forward to wipe the dirt and pluck crushed dandelions from Cas’ skin, before moving to pick at the stray leaves he’d amassed in his disheveled hair. Cas stood stock still, though tilted his head slightly forward to allow Dean access, his gaze locked.

“You’re a mess, dude” Dean grinned fondly, surprising himself with the affection in his tone.

So sue him, Dean could get a bit cheesy the morning after near-death angel explosions involving _certain_ heavenly beings he may or may not have been into, who also happened to sport respectably attractive vessels with kickass wings. It could happen to _anyone._ And to hell with it if he wanted to ruffle Cas’ hair and maybe do a little more _soul-transferring_ (minus the whole scorchy part, preferably) because sweet Jesus on a unicycle those lips had been soft, and they’d felt so goddamned right.

Cas meanwhile, seemed sheepish at the statement, pressing his teeth into that generous bottom lip of his, which was almost Dean’s undoing.

“I suppose I am,” he agreed with a shrug. The wings bounced in tandem.

Dean cleared his throat in a vain effort to quash the surging fantasies, though with Cas staring through him like that with a subtle flush colouring his face, it was an impossible task.

“Okay well since you’re stuck here, if you wanna fly, let’s work it out,” Dean proposed with a clap of exaggerated enthusiasm, designed to dispel his reverie. “I think you’re probably flapping too hard, for starters.”

“And _you’ve_ had a lot of experience flying,” Cas quipped dryly, raising an eyebrow. “You. Dean Winchester.”

Despite how secretly impressed he was with Cas for the devastating burn, he feigned affront. It was, after all, _perfectly rational_ to be terrified of travelling at 300 miles an hour in a steel toilet paper tube, 5 miles above the ground.

“Calm down Big Bird, no need to get personal. I’m just saying, it’s like an engine. You can’t just throw it into overdrive right off the bat, you have to work your way up the gears. Y’know. Ease’r into it.”

Mercifully, Cas seemed unaffected by Dean’s accidental visit to Euphemism Land (they had great _rides_ ) and merely returned a vaguely uneasy look.

“Shut up,”he warned preemptively, “I’m actually pretty good at mechanics, in case you forgot. Here,” Dean offered, face inelegantly red as he clamped his hands around Cas’ wrists tightly. The angel followed suit.

“So, I’ll anchor you. Just uh… flap slowly. And try not to blow me uh ...away.”

Guinness would likely be reaching out to him soon regarding his prize for most consecutively-suggestive choice of words in one day.

“Flap… _slowly._ ” Cas repeated, sounding dubious at best. Dean rolled his eyes.

“ C’mon angel, just humour me. Flap those chicken wings. Nice an’ easy, and then gradually Grace it up.”

Narrowed eyes irrevocably glued to Dean’s, the angel in question nevertheless did as he was bid. He flapped, ever so delicately, even then causing a minor whirlwind of dust to rise around their knees. Dean meanwhile, tried not to stare at how the muscles of Cas’ shoulders and neck tensed and released like a superbly-adapted machine, wordlessly marveling at how it was all miraculously contained in a distractingly well-designed chassis, as it were. There was nothing Dean liked more in this universe, except a slice of warm apple cinnamon à la mode of course, than experiencing the purr of a well-oiled machine in a great body, after all.

God help him.

“If you pull my shoulders out of my sockets…”

“I would fix you, Dean” the angel promised breathlessly, all solemnity even as he flapped more and more strenuously.

Dean hummed his assent, cheeks blazing. He had to crane his neck up now, to properly follow Cas’ face, and grinned proudly at the apparent success of his strategy.

“Hey, it’s working!” he beamed, “Toldja!”

Indeed, he held fast to the angel as the great wings beat a steady, slow rhythm which generated a reasonable amount of lift without catapulting Cas into the next county. He was maintaining a safe few feet off the ground now, without much trouble.

“Yes, you were right, Dean! I believe I’m _‘getting the hang of it_ ’ now!” Cas grinned with enthusiasm, the clouds lifting from his face. Dean could almost _hear_ the air quotes.

Dean knew that the slight hitch to Cas’ voice, along with the teeny smile crinkling his stoic features translated to euphoria in Castiel-speak, or pretty damn close. Dean smiled widely as a few peals of laughter even escaped the angel as he lifted higher and higher, to the point where Dean had to stretch his arms far over his head to maintain buoyancy.

“This is quite satisfying!” he grinned.

There was no mistaking it: Cas was ecstatic. His blue eyes flickered from Dean to the sky with a kind of unrestrained joy Dean had rarely seen on him. It was like a revelation.

In that moment, Dean instantly recognized the warmth pooling in his chest, and for once, he wasn’t afraid. He wanted to see this kind of reaction in Cas as often as he possibly could, wanted to be responsible for giving him these rare bouts of untainted happiness in an existence sublimated by blind, self-effacing devotion to others. He wanted to give Cas wings always, if it was within his limited mortal grasp. Something heavy and self-negating had been dislodged in his chest, as though the toothy angel grin had somehow been the last heave necessary to send Dean teetering over a self-imposed edge. In fact, in that moment of ridiculous amusement, Dean felt compelled to spew all the sappy Samantha stuff he'd kept bottled up right at Cas and see what would happen, feeling the affection and adoration flood over him like winter thaw.

And he just might have too, were it not for his feet suddenly being pulled _up and away_ from the damp grass.

Instinctively, Dean clenched every muscle in his body and attempted to release the angel’s wrists and ground himself, but he found that he couldn’t. He shot a terrified glare at Cas, who merely grinned in reply (the bastard), and tightened his hold on Dean’s forearms.

“CAS!!!??! HAHA CAS, VERY FUNNY, LET ME GO,” he ~~shrieked~~ yelled in a very manly tone, his feet swinging around in panic as he tried to forcefully pull the angel back down. Like anyone could pull an _angel_ (even half of one) anywhere it didn’t want to go. He’d have fared better playing tug-of-war against a charging elephant with dental floss.

Cas rose even higher, leaving the motel’s grimy roof to shrink in tandem with Dean’s bladder control.

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON A CRACKER CAS, PUT ME DOWN!” he bellowed roughly, his throat Sahara dry as he watched his feet now dangling helplessly above the parking lot.

Cas actually  _chuckled._

How the hell had he just considered pouring his heart out to this levitating asshole? He was gonna _kill_ him if he ever got back down to sweet, blessed firm ground. Yeah, he was going to steal the angel blade right from his stupid, stinky trench-coat, bend him over and shove it right up-

All at once, Cas gave an almighty wrench and hoisted Dean up to his chest. Dean did absolutely not yelp - he didn’t - nor did he throw his arms around Cas’ neck in blind, petrified horror, screwing his eyes shut and shoving his face into the angel’s neck. In fact, now that he was plastered against him like the caramel on a candy apple, he’d _really_ show him who was boss.

“I promise I won’t drop you, Dean,” Cas whispered soothingly. Dean could _hear_ the grin in his words, and it infuriated him all the more.

“I’ll drop YOU once we get back down there,” Dean sniped in a voice about three octaves higher than usual.

He refused to open his eyes, even though the pulsing beat of wings was undeniably more steady now, and smoother than he would have pictured given the angelic canon balls Cas had been pockmarking the landscape with earlier. Furthermore, Cas’ firm, encompassing hold on him, while definitely functional, seemed far more affectionate than the workings of a mere safety feature. He’d somehow tucked his feet beneath Dean’s like this was some sort of aerial dance lesson, while his arms locked tightly around his waist. They were so close that he felt more like he was _wearing_ Cas than riding him. Neither implication entirely displeased him, but Dean’s eyes remained resolutely cemented shut.

“Please, just look for a moment, Dean” Cas implored him, right next to his ear. “I have always wanted to show you this.”

There was a longing to Castiel’s voice that spilled warmth into Dean’s choked chest, and sent his adrenaline-polluted pulse simmering.

“Angelic flight is too fast for human eyes usually, but this.... I would like you to experience something other than nausea while flying, and this might be my only chance to give that to you.”

Dean swore he felt Cas squeeze him tighter.

“Please, Dean. Trust me.”

Shaky and vaguely sickened as he was by the height and the aerial seesawing, Dean knew he hadn’t any choice. There was something too pleading and sincere in Cas’ words… like he’d held onto this tiny, impossible dream for an age. And Dean well, he was not a man to disappoint any angel currently keeping him from plummeting to a certain, messy death.

_“Fine.”_

He dug his fingers even deeper around Cas’ neck, far too terrified to even preoccupy himself with the full-on body sandwich press they had going on, and tentatively opened an eye.

As expected, his stomach took a nosedive into his heels, but he nevertheless followed through with the other eye.

“If I puke, it’s on you. Literally.” Dean gritted unsteadily, seeing nothing but flapping black wings in front of him. It was only then that he realized just how incredibly awkward a position this was; like a crushing hug 100 feet in the air, while he ‘stood’ on Cas’ toes. It seemed like mortal terror did nothing to dispel the intoxicating the feel of Cas’ lean body crushed against him after all. Go figure.

“Okay,” he grumbled, “What am I looking at here, aside from the KFC special?”

He didn’t so much see as _feel_ the scowl stretching on Cas’ face, since his own cheek was so carelessly crushed against the stubbly surface around Cas’ mouth.

“I don’t see why you insist on calling them that,” the angel griped. “Chicken wings would hardly provide enough lift to sustain us both aloft.”

“Don’t say shit like that right now, Cas.”

“I’m going to flip you around now. Don’t struggle.”

“You’re going to - Wait, WHAT? CAS!!!”

Before he could protest any further, the angel had somehow steered him around in the blink of an eye. He suppressed a whimper as he contemplated the vexation of being treated like a Dean-sized ragdoll for the second time in 12 hours. That was, of course, until he became all too aware of Cas’ solid heat encompassing him from behind, sinewy arms locked around his midsection, outstretched feet anchored beneath his, and his chin neatly tucked over Dean’s right shoulder. He chose not to ponder what other parts were mashed up against him, though the effort was astronomical even with the fatal fright coursing through his veins. That Dean’s almost legendary libido would not be deterred by mere mortal dread was unsurprising of course, but it didn’t really help the situation.

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack? You’re way too gutsy for a guy who just learned how to do this five seconds ago!” Dean whined, his eyes somehow having closed again.  

“Look,” Cas ordered him, his thundering voice far too close to Dean’s earlobe for any semblance of fairness in life.

It figured that the angel would make with the ridiculously sexy voice stuff only when he was about to explode, or whilst holding Dean in a death drop over an incredible sunrise.

And that, all of a sudden, was what struck Dean dumb as he finally dared to open his eyes again.

The early morning was aglow with young sunlight tipping over the horizon, and while at first glance this podunk town had seemed completely unremarkable, its gently rolling hills and endless stretch of forests, now cast in rusted ambers and slowly rising dawn-mist, seemed to indicate otherwise. Small ponds dotted the landscape with a glowing sheen like broken mirror pieces, while tufts of lazy clouds shone brightly in the haze. There wasn’t much Dean counted himself lucky to be alive for, on Earth. He found, more often than not, that the simple things, like family, good cars, good pie and good company had suited him just fine. Now he realized he’d have to up the ante a bit, given that sunrises while perched on the wings of a literal angel - his angel -  had been indelibly added to the list.

“Of all the things I have seen in my millennia of being alive, sunrise is one of my favourites, now that I am allowed to indulge in saying so out loud” said Cas, with a solemn reverence that washed over the hunter like a warm tide. 

“Wow,” he had to admit, stupefied. “This is awesome, Cas. You’re… awesome.”

There was a smile again, pressed into his shoulder.

“Something about how the light gets filtered through the atmosphere as it crests the horizon,” the angel went on dreamily, “It’s one of God’s finest spectacles. Even better from the upper Thermosphere, actually.”

“Don’t take it personally if I pass on _that_ version,” Dean balked, his acrophobia spiking dangerously around his belly in protest. “I like it just fine right here.”

“Yes, so do I,” Cas agreed knowingly.

Dean might occasionally have proven dense when dealing with Cas’ confusing signals, but he wasn’t obtuse enough to ignore the way Cas’ arms had squeezed in ever so slightly, or how there was now a gentle scuff of stubble pressed to the joint of his neck as they wafted on the breeze, to and fro. His heart swelled, and not just from the height. But before he could deal with any of this, with the heat in his gut, with the dizzying throb of hunger and affection in his heart, he had to know. Had to hear it. Dean liked things simple. Killing, screwing, eating, driving, he liked it all as straightforward as possible, even though his association to Cas was anything but.

Or maybe it was.

“Cas…” he began, not having the faintest idea where to go from there. He paused.

“Yes, Dean? Is something wrong?”

God, he hated that he’d disturbed Cas’ cozy stance, the warmth on his shoulder evaporating as Cas shifted with concern.

“Aside from the fact that you’ve got me hanging mid-air 100 feet off the ground? Not really, no.”

“Oh,” Cas realized, his voice low. “I’m sorr-”

“No, no it’s great Cas, don’t get me wrong” Dean interrupted, “This is actually really… well it’s _awesome,_ actually. You were right. But I can’t exactly see you and well, I just… I...there’s some things a guy has to say face to face, you uh… you dig?” he sputtered, cursing himself for his lack of eloquence. “We … we gotta talk for a minute, man. On land, so I don’t accidentally ruin the upholstery mid-sentence.”

“Of course, Dean,” the angel acquiesced, “though I’m…” His sentence trailed off as the steady pulse of wing-beats suddenly hitched a little.

“....Cas?”

“Yes… I… Hmm.” he hummed thoughtfully.

“Cas, _what is it_?” Dean hissed, as his ride bumped again.

“.... You wouldn’t happen to know about the physical mechanics of landing, would you?”

 

Dean blanched.


End file.
